Tip from former Husker helped Nebraska land a top-15 volleyball recruit

The first recruiting tip Christina Hudson gave to Nebraska volleyball coach John Cook was a good one.

Most people know Hudson by her maiden name of Christina Houghtelling, the beloved three-sport athlete from small-town Cambridge who went on to be the college volleyball national player of the year in 2005 at Nebraska.

Now she lives in the Denver suburb of Firestone, Colorado. She gives small group and individual lessons at a volleyball club in the area.

And that’s how Hudson met Andi Jackson, a high school volleyball player so talented that Hudson just had to tell Cook.

“I hadn’t run across anybody quite like Andi,” Hudson said.

Jackson is a 6-foot-3 middle blocker from Brighton, Colorado, a city of about 40,000. She wasn’t well known to a lot of college coaches when Hudson began working with her, which gave Nebraska a head start.

Jackson has kept improving over the past two years. She wasn’t in the PrepVolleyball.com recruiting rankings last spring, but Jackson is now the No. 13 overall recruit.

Signing day for college volleyball is Wednesday, and Jackson is part of a five-player recruiting class that Nebraska is expected to unveil. The group is considered the No. 1 recruiting class in the nation.

Jackson started working with Hudson a few years ago — it took one session for Hudson to reach out to Cook.

“She wanted to go somewhere warm (for college),” Hudson said. “I just kind of picked her brain because I knew she was going to be a big-time player. Her No. 1 school was Texas, and she had a couple of other schools. I said, ‘OK, just with your permission I’d love to pass your information on to Coach Cook.’ Both her and her mom were like, ‘Yes, absolutely.’ Nebraska wasn’t on their radar.”

Jackson is fast, both in how she moves from side to side and in her arm swing.

“She’s one of the most athletic girls I’ve seen,” Hudson said. “She’s long, lean, strong. She learns well. She’s kind. I feel like she’s a Husker.”

Cook watched some video of Jackson and agreed.

“He was like, ‘Yeah, she needs to be a Husker.’ He’s just excited,” Hudson said. “She’s just an athlete. You can just see her quickness. And her jump touch already is at least (10 feet, 5 inches). She just has this smoothness in the middle. I just have no doubt with some specific training at Nebraska she’s going to have a really good career.”

In July 2021, Jackson attended Nebraska’s Dream Team camp, and soon after that she committed. She was also considering Baylor and USC.

Jackson wasn’t one of the highly ranked recruits at that camp but stood out with her speed while blocking and hitting.

“Once they started developing a…